Bye Bye Beijing

The Forbidden City was a place where civilians were once denied access. This place is vast, grand and totally impressive. We met our Chinese guide, Charlie who is a 82 years young. He was animated as he explained the feng shui (wind,water) and thought behind the design of this city. The number of stairs represent a person's status. The tiers on the roof were meant for protection.

There were a number of good luck pieces he pointed out, one was a large bat made out of stones that we walked on. We also touched the bronze cauldron with lion's head on top, another good luck charm.

We ended up in the beautiful imperial garden area, my favorite.

There were two trees that grew together in an auspicious way, of

course everyone was having their photo taken in front of it..

young and inspiring Charlie

a detail of the roof, the more animals a roof had the more status, the emperor's roof had 10

A retired horticulturist professor he has found his retirement niche

We left Forbidden City and walked across the street to Jingseng Park where we hiked up to the top of the mountain that protected the city. An amazing panoramic view. This is the exact center of Beijing, so all of this is on the central meridian, kind of fascinating how it was planned out. After we hiked down 

the other side and walked through the park  we headed towards the drum tower and walked and walked through many fun hutong areas (Houhai area) where we found a restaurant that had the spicy cuisine of the southwestern Guizhou province.

 We got all the exercise we needed and in a few hours will

be relaxing on the high speed train to Shanghai.

bye bye Beijing!